Always

I had flirted with the idea of immortality, who hadn’t, but discarded it with little further thought. When one was young, one dismissed such notions. When one grew older, in my case, much, then it required further attention.
I had no need for a body; it had always been a disappointment. My brain required the attention as that was where my true self resided. I had no family, proper friends, not even a dog, so had no commitments to consider. Unless death was a commitment, in which case I considered it fully?
The preparation took two months, nothing more. Immortality, that ideal which had transfixed the Greek scholars onwards, came to me in less time than it took to grow a vegetable garden. I was rather euphoric about the whole affair.
The day came, and I flicked the switch. A cobalt light crackled through my hillside laboratory at the same time as something far brighter illuminated the horizon. I didn’t hear the explosion, but my mind told me it came.
I woke.
Life had left my physical form, replaced with the vessel, in my case an old goldfish bowl full of a saline and vinegar mix, that contained my brain and ocular receptors. They were all I needed. At least, I’d thought so.
My bowl lay on the ground, as fortune would have it, with its lid still screwed on and me floating around inside it. The Earth, however, had changed. The sky was crimson, clouds gone. The sun baked an already charred planet.
Too long. I’d left them too long. Mankind had blown themselves to smithereens and all that remained was a brain in a glass with eyes to stimulate it. I was alone. More alone than any person could’ve dreamed. What was more, I always would be. Always.